What Destinations Would Cat Lovers Enjoy Most

You’re going on vacation – but your cat absolutely hates to travel. She gets carsick and spends the entire car ride yowling. Taking Fluffy with you is thus not an option.

What you can do instead is choose a destination with a lot of cats. In fact, the cats are often listed as one of the attractions. You may choose from islands, animal sanctuaries, cat cafés, and various other places.

16 Travel Destinations For Cat Lovers

Cat Island

Hemingway House

Japanese Cat Café

Inle Heritage House

Supreme Cat Show

Poezenboot

Feline Historical Museum

Cat House on the Kings

Gotukuji Temple

Big Cat Rescue

Kuching Cat Museum

Torre Argentina Cat

KattenKabinet

Kedi

Mykonos

Cat Mountain Lodge

What is Cat Island?

According to the staff writer for Fodors.com, there are actually about a dozen “cat islands” in Japan, and they are simply islands where the felines outnumber the human residents.

The best-known cat island is Aoshima Island, which is located off of northwestern Japan and is considered part of the Ehime prefecture. Aoshima used to be a fishing village, and it is now home to just 15 humans and dozens of cats.

Fortunately for the cats, the humans believe that tending to them will bring them wealth and good fortune.

What is Hemingway House?

Hemingway House is a tourist attraction in Key West, Florida. The famous writer Ernest Hemingway lived there throughout much of the 1930s.

Hemingway adored cats and was particularly partial to polydactyl cats, and the 40 or 50 cats now living at Hemingway House are descendants of his cats.

Polydactyl cats, for the record, are cats with extra toes. They are also sometimes called “Hemingway cats” after their biggest fan. To learn more about Hemingway House, visit the website.

What does Tokyo have for cat lovers?

According to Emma Sloley, a writer for TravelandLeisure.com, Japan, in general, is a cat lover’s paradise. The YouTube star Maru the Scottish Fold is a proud resident of Japan.

Tokyo is also home to scores of cat cafés where the patrons can enjoy their drinks and play with the resident cats. The below video depicts the Cat Café Mocha which is apparently part of a chain of cat cafés.

Tokyo is also home to the Hello Kitty theme park, more formally known as Sanrio Puroland. Hello, Kitty is a white Japanese Bobtail who is wildly popular in Japan.

The character debuted in the mid-1970s and has since appeared in cartoons, manga (comic books), and lot and lots of merchandise, including surprisingly high-end items like jewelry.

The Hello Kitty theme park draws 1.5 million visitors a year, and they can enjoy rides and musicals. They can also visit Hello Kitty’s house, which features a bathtub shaped like her face plus pictures of her family.

They can also take a boat ride led by a character called Cinnamonroll, who will escort them to a party hosted by Hello Kitty herself. To learn more about the Hello Kitty theme park, visit the website.

What is Inle Heritage House?

Inle Heritage House, which is located on Inle Lake in Myanmar (Burma) is non-profit devoted to preserving the culture and nature of the surrounding area.

In addition to various other projects, Inle Heritage House runs a Burmese cat sanctuary. Burmese cats had once been the favored pets of royalty and religious leaders but gradually went nearly extinct in Myanmar through interbreeding with other cats. The below video describes how pedigreed Burmese cats were reintroduced to Myanmar:

What is Cat House on the Kings?

According to the staff writer for Meowingtons.com’s blog, Cat House on the Kings is the United States’ largest no-kill and no-cage cat sanctuary. Established in the early 1990s, it is located in Parlier, California.

Lynea Lattanzio founded the Cat House to provide a home for stray and abandoned cats and currently cares for over 700 felines who have the run of the place.

Volunteers and paid staff help Lattanzio care for her charges, which also include several dozen peacocks and roughly a dozen dogs.

People may adopt cats from the Cat House, and they may also surrender cats that they can no longer care for. For more information about the Cat House, visit the website.

Where is the Gotukuji Temple?

The Gotukuji Temple is located in the Setagaya district of Tokyo, and it is said to be the origin of the “beckoning cat” legend.

The “beckoning cat” or Maneki-Neko is a cat with a single upraised paw that is often used as a good luck charm in Japan. The Temple contains scores of Maneki-Neko figurines.

The legend of the beckoning cat supposedly dates back to the Edo period (1603-1868). As per the story, a traveling nobleman and his entourage were caught in a fearsome thunderstorm.

A cat from the temple guided the lord and his followers to the temple’s shelter and then beckoned them inside.

Some versions of the story state that lightning struck the tree under which the nobleman had originally sought shelter, so the cat saved his life as well as led him to dry shelter.

The temple is open every day from 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., and admission is free. For more information, visit the website.

What is Big Cat Rescue?

Big Cat Rescue, which is located in Tampa, Florida, is the largest accredited big cat sanctuary in the world. Its 55 acres are home to 14 species of cats including lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, bobcats, lynx, caracals, servals, and ocelots.

Many of the cats are retired circus animals or were taken from owners who did not take proper care of them. In addition to caring for their charges, the staff also work to discourage the trade in exotic pets and to educate the public about cats.

Big Cat Rescue also runs a foster program for domestic kittens where volunteers take care of the kittens until they are ready to be adopted out.

Big Cat Rescue does offer tours, but they have to be scheduled and paid for in advance. To learn more about Big Cat Rescue, visit the website or call (813) 920-4130.

Where is the Kuching Cat Museum?

The Kuching Cat Museum is located in the Kuching North City Hall, which is in Malaysia. It bills itself as the first museum in the world devoted to cats, and it opened in 1992.

The entrance is surrounded by the head and body of a gigantic tabby cat. Inside the museum are various artifacts and artworks devoted to cats – including a mummified cat from Egypt thousands of years old.

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except holidays. For more information, visit the website.

Where is the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary?

The Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary is located in Rome – on the exact spot where Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. The cats live among the ruins of Rome’s oldest known temples, which date back to the 4th or 3rd century BC.

Cats have lived among such ruins for generations, and the resident “gattare” or “cat ladies” began caring for them after the temples were excavated in 1929.

Since then, a network of volunteers has been feeding, cleaning, and medicating the 150+ cats in the sanctuary. They also show visitors around from 12 to 6 p.m. every day.

The volunteers also run a Trap Neuter and Release (TNR) program, foster orphaned kittens, and arrange adoptions. To learn more, visit the website.

What is KattenKabinet?

“Katten Kabinet” means “cat cabinet” in Dutch, and it is a museum in Amsterdam dedicated to cats. It was established in 1990 by Bob Meijer to commemorate his own cat, John Pierpont Morgan.

Meijer used the lower floors of his own house, which had been constructed in 1667, to house the museum. Meijer’s early collection consisted of birthday presents given to the late John Pierpont Morgan and included items like a bronze cat statue and a mock-up of an American dollar bill portraying Morgan and emblazoned with the motto, “We trust no dog.”

Ove the years, Meijer added statues, furniture, paintings, and other works. Additionally, at least five cats call the museum home. For more information, visit the website.

Where was “Kedi” made?

“Kedi,” a documentary about cats and the people who love them, was made in Istanbul. Turkey’s largest city has been home to a large stray cat population for centuries, and many of the residents care for the cats.

Jodi Ettenberg, who writes for the blog “Legal Nomads,” notes that the prophet Muhammad was depicted as a cat-lover.

In one well-known story, for example, he cut the sleeve off of his robe rather than disturb his sleeping cat. Another story told of a cat that saved Muhammad from a venomous serpent.

The grateful prophet blessed the cat with the ability to always land on its feet. Turks also value cats for their rodent-hunting prowess.

The “Wall Street Journal” posted the following video about the cats of Istanbul and mentions the fact that the Hagia Sophia, parts of which date back to the 6th century, has a resident cat.

Where is Mykonos?

Mykonos is part of the Cyclades, an island group off of Greece’s southeastern coast. The Cyclades are home to the Aegean cat, the only breed native to Greece. Melvin Pena, a writer for “Catster.com” calls Mykonos a “cat island” akin to the ones in Japan.

As with the Japanese cat islands, most of the cats do not truly have owners, and the locals look after them while tourists admire them. In 2005, the Mykonos Animal Welfare was established to handle such matters as spaying and neutering cats.

Where is the Cat Mountain Lodge?

The Cat Mountain Lodge is located in Tucson, Arizona, and it is minutes from Old Tucson, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and the Saguaro National Park. The museum includes a natural history museum, zoo, and aquarium.

The Lodge, a B&B, was built from eco-friendly materials and opened in 2010. The Lodge itself contains five rooms decorated in the Southwestern style. It also owns a roadside inn across the street, and each room has a theme.

Visitors can enjoy the opportunity to see cougars and bobcats prowling through their natural habitat. To learn more, visit the website or call (520) 578-6085.